– self-adhesive film (I walked into the ‘Popular’ bookstore looking for something that would work as a huge transparent sticker and this is what I found. It comes in a roll and is supposed to be used for covering books.)

– a piece of drawing block paper (This is for the backing of the artwork. Try to use paper that’s not too flimsy so it won’t crumple easily and you can display your child’s work.)

– a pair of scissors

– coloured paper (I used construction paper but you can also use crepe paper, magazine cutouts, cellophane, pieces of felt or scrap cloth, the possibilities are endless!)

– a small container

– Blu tack

Instructions:

1. Cut the coloured paper into different shapes. If you like, you could cut out triangles, rectangles, squares and other shapes but I didn’t want to spend too much time being precise so I just cut randomly and quickly. The pieces ended up looking like Tangram pieces, hence the name ‘Tangram Art’.

2. Place the drawing block on the adhesive film and cut around it, leaving a border of around one centimetre. The backing of the adhesive film has grid boxes so you can use those to gauge where to cut.

3. Paste blu tack all around the edges of the adhesive film. It would probably work better if you used sticky tape but because I intended to attach the film to the wall, I didn’t want to risk having pieces of paint coming off with the tape.

4. Attach the adhesive film to an empty wall at your child’s eye level, with the grid paper side facing outwards. I initially envisioned having Raeann sitting in front of the wall to do the artwork but she preferred to stand instead, so I shifted it upwards to her eye level when she’s standing.

5. Peel off the grid paper.

6. Reinforce the droopy edges of the film with more blu tack.

7. Demonstrate to your child how to play and let her have fun!

To help with her colour recognition, as I passed her each shape, I would tell her the colour of the shape. e.g. “Here’s a blue shape.”

You could also use this activity for shape recognition by using different shapes. First, you could identify the different shapes for your child and later get her to pick out the shapes to use. e.g. “Can you paste a green triangle now, please?”

8. Carefully paste a piece of drawing block paper on the adhesive film on the wall, leaving a border of around one centimetre all around the paper.

9. Remove the art piece from the wall and remove the blu tack. Write the date in the corner (optional), fold down the border and stick it to the back of the paper.

10. Paste it on the wall for all to admire. 🙂

A couple of days later, I found a box of cut-out stars while looking through my art & craft materials.

Ting ting ting! If this were a cartoon, a light bulb would have flashed above my head! I could use the stars to do a variation of the Tangram Art piece! To make it look like a starry sky, I would use black/dark blue construction paper as the backing instead.

During the actual execution of my idea, I realised that the back of the stars were not coloured. Hence, for the coloured stars to appear on the eventual art piece, Raeann would need to paste the stars with the coloured side facing inwards. I decided to go ahead with the activity and she still had fun but I suppose it would have been more enjoyable for her if she had been able to see the different colour stars as she pasted them. So if you decide to try this activity, do use shapes where both sides are coloured ya.